The stories which are given in the following pages are for the most part those which I have found to be best liked by the children to whom I have told these and others. I have tried to reproduce the form in which I actually tell them,--although that inevitably varies with every repetition,--feeling that it would be of greater value to another story-teller than a more closely literary form.

the primer of history? Of
course it is not. A story is essentially and
primarily a work of art, and its chief function
must be sought in the line of the uses of art.
Just as the drama is capable of secondary uses,
yet fails abjectly to realise its purpose when
those are substituted for its real significance
as a work of art, so does the story lend itself
to subsidiary purposes, but claims first and
most strongly to be recognised in its real
significance as a work of art. Since the drama
deals with life in all its parts, it can exemplify
sociological theory, it can illustrate economic
principle, it can even picture politics; but the
drama which does these things only, has no
breath of its real life in its being, and dies
when the wind of popular tendency veers from
its direction. So, you can teach a child
interesting facts about bees and butterflies by telling
him certain stories, and you can open his eyes
to colours and processes in nature by telling
certain others; but unless you do something
more than